I found the same problem on Ubuntu 10.10: I use davfs via autofs and I am waiting minutes to get a directory listing back from an 'ls' command.

I've set LOGGING='debug' in /etc/default/autofs. I do 'service autofs restart'. Then I keep a 'live view' on /var/log/daemon.log: every 5 seconds autofs spits out some information about whether it should keep directories mounted. In another shell I then do an 'ls' on a directory that should be first mounted by autofs (via davfs). It tells that is has mounted the directory, right after I've executed the 'ls'. Then the shell waits for the 'ls' command to return a listing (for very long) and in the mean time the file daemon.log just keeps on adding the usual 'expire' messages. It DOES NOT show any more messages, even when the 'ls' finally comes back with the directory listing.

So, mounting is successful, but then ?

Here's a part of the daemon.log file:


Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: attempting to mount entry /srv/dav/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: attempting to mount entry /srv/dav/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: lookup_mount: lookup(file): looking up somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: lookup_mount: lookup(file): somedavdir -> -fstype=davfs,rw,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000#011https://webdavserver.com/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: parse_mount: parse(sun): expanded entry: -fstype=davfs,rw,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000#011https://webdavserver.com/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: parse_mount: parse(sun): gathered options: fstype=davfs,rw,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: parse_mount: parse(sun): dequote("https://webdavserver.com/somedavdir") -> https://webdavserver.com/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: parse_mount: parse(sun): core of entry: options=fstype=davfs,rw,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000, loc=https://webdavserver.com/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: sun_mount: parse(sun): mounting root /srv/dav, mountpoint somedavdir, what https://webdavserver.com/somedavdir, fstype davfs, options rw,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: do_mount: https://webdavserver.com/somedavdir /srv/dav/somedavdir type davfs options rw,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000 using module generic
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: mount_mount: mount(generic): calling mkdir_path /srv/dav/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: mount_mount: mount(generic): calling mount -t davfs -s -o rw,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000 https://webdavserver.com/somedavdir /srv/dav/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: mount(generic): mounted https://webdavserver.com/somedavdir type davfs on /srv/dav/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: dev_ioctl_send_ready: token = 88
Jan 12 13:18:00 my-laptop automount[15900]: mounted /srv/dav/somedavdir

---and then it keep on outputting these messages (which are not correlated to the problem, I think) ----

Jan 12 13:18:03 my-laptop automount[15900]: expire_cleanup: sigchld: exp 140092989744896 finished, switching from 2 to 1
Jan 12 13:18:04 my-laptop automount[15900]: st_expire: state 1 path /srv/dav
Jan 12 13:18:04 my-laptop automount[15900]: expire_proc: exp_proc = 140092989744896 path /srv/dav
Jan 12 13:18:04 my-laptop automount[15900]: expire_proc_indirect: expire /srv/dav/somedavdir
Jan 12 13:18:04 my-laptop automount[15900]: 1 remaining in /srv/dav
Jan 12 13:18:04 my-laptop automount[15900]: expire_cleanup: got thid 140092989744896 path /srv/dav stat 3
Jan 12 13:18:04 my-laptop automount[15900]: expire_cleanup: sigchld: exp 140092989744896 finished, switching from 2 to 1
Jan 12 13:18:04 my-laptop automount[15900]: st_ready: st_ready(): state = 2 path /srv/dav
Jan 12 13:18:11 my-laptop automount[15900]: expire_cleanup: sigchld: exp 140092989744896 finished, switching from 2 to 1
Jan 12 13:18:12 my-laptop automount[15900]: st_expire: state 1 path /srv/dav
Jan 12 13:18:12 my-laptop automount[15900]: expire_proc: exp_proc = 140092989744896 path /srv/dav
Jan 12 13:18:12 my-laptop automount[15900]: expire_proc_indirect: expire /srv/dav/somedavdir
------ etc etc etc